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Sunday, 1 January 2012

﻿IHAD A DREAM a few weeks ago in which several symbols appeared before me. They had no context, just were there. One of them remained with me upon waking, and I became determined to discover its meaning. It was a rune-like sign, made of straight sections, and looked like this:

I’ve been paying more attention to my dreams recently, and this sign seemed to need deciphering. I went first to the runes for a meaning, but though my symbol was very like a rune, I found none like mine. Then I searched amongst the Ogham alphabet. At first I thought it must be the Ogham cipher for birch which is made up of a vertical straight line, a shorter horizontal heading out to the right from the centre and at the base (as begins or ends all Ogham letters when written alone) an inverted V, making two legs. This was the symbol most like mine I could find, though it wasn’t quite satisfactory - my symbol had three legs and a diagonal stroke to the right.

For a while I sat with birch trees and wondered, until one day I found the answer in my sketchbook. I was drawing ideas for an image I’ve had sitting on my shoulder for a while; as the imagery came out of my pencil in rough scribbles of ideas, I spotted the symbol hiding in amongst the sketching, and it gave me impetus to carry the idea through to a finished design.

For some time I have wanted to make an image with which to start a quiet revolution on the backs of service station toilet doors, on the billboards behind carparks, over the screens of insidious train-journey advertising. In deep hatred for the feeling I get when I am forced to enter motorway service station cafes, shopping malls or toilets, I wanted to rail against all that is bland and homogeneous and commercial and life-suckingly chrome-and-concrete and spreading un-refuted like a disease across our land. I imagined planting little seeds of hope and solidarity in the form of a beautiful and rousing image which I would stick between the scrawlings of desperation and ugliness in the perfumed, disinfected cubicles made for us to shit in whilst we are not at home. The backs of public toilet doors are a fascinating melting pot of honest expression, dissent and advertising; it feels like there’s a communication between strangers played out there in this, the most private of rooms, and this is the way I wanted to communicate: liminally.

I suppose I wanted to plant my revolution-seed in the dirt in the cracks of the pavements, in the dirt between the formica and polyester, in the dirt pushed to the edges of millions of touchscreens, in the dirt underneath escalator rails and hygienic hand-dryers. Like the gargoyles and marginal grotesques of the middle ages, I wanted to coax beauty in once more like a stranger to the citadels of public ugliness we all have become so used to. I wanted to surprise and unnerve and delight and disedge all the lovely human beings who have grown so unseeing in the unbeautiful subway of their daily rush through these places. I wanted ivy to grow over all the chrome and adverts, its clinging rootlets ruining the L'Oréal shine with their ancient, living patination, and its roots grinding escalators to a twisted halt. I wanted green silence to toll through the noisy claustrophobia of shopping malls and for the shoppers to break their ankles on huge ancient roots, which had crept in past the security guards (notwithstanding hoodies and ASBOs) to smash up the shops. I wanted to grab them by the hand, and run with them (limping) to the dark woods and remind them that they are powerful.

And so I made this drawing for you - Rise & Root - a symbol perhaps, a waymarker for the Zapatistas of suburbia. As I drew the rooted tree-people raising their fists, I realised that they were the embodiment and representation of my dream-rune: raised fists to the fight, and roots in the earth. I give you this image to do with what you wish: download it, reblog it, print it, photocopy it, make it into stickers and take them with you in your bag to stick on the backs of public toilet doors, on supermarket conveyor belts or over underground advertising screens; make it into a poster, a projection, print it on bags and T-shirts, paint it large on the sides of petrol stations, pavements, parliaments.

Or take the rune as a symbol we’ll all recognise when it’s chalked on our doorsteps, and tattooed on our foreheads.

I want this image not to be for sale - take it freely and use it, let’s make it spread unrelenting from the edges, appearing everywhere, but not obviously authored. I will not make a website about it. It is rough, and black-and-white as a badly photocopied pamphlet. It is yours. A gift to our revolution for Two Thousand And Twelve. Take it and run.

Here's to the Revolution! What a wonderful idea and thankyou for the beautiful symbol. I hate motorway services and shopping malls too and keep away unless it is absolutely necessary to visit them. Sadly there seem to be many who disagree. I have an idea in mind for a fabric book on the tree Ogham alphabet - I'm a textile artist and love making fabric books. A lot of thinking has already been done but there needs to be more before I'm ready to start work.

Oh how I love this.I live in Paris. I've been at the Occupy La Defense campement, trying to offer organic seeds in a midst of rushing workers, at the feet of buildings scraping the sky with the names of big bad companies. Trying to put color and art on concrete...

Rise & Root. Beauty in Resistance. Beauty *is* Resistance. Thank you for the dream, the rune, the roots, for the fist and the sky.

Hi again Rima, I wonder if you've heard of author and blogger Keri Smith. she is a Canadian who's message is similar to what you've written in your blog post. If you are interested, here is a link:http://www.kerismith.com/blog

Most amazing, powerful revolutionary gift, a reminder, a magical spell upon modern lives and modern dwellings. Thank you Rima for the root spreading and fists rising and for your gift and your dreams sharing.

Ah how wonderful, Rima. Thank you. For those of us who agree with you and are sickened at society's demise. We will use your symbol and place it in places to remind others that we are not alone and that the time for change has come. ~Amy

Wow ! It looks to me like a bindrune made from a transposed nauthiz (need-fire), combined with kenaz (torch). Maybe your idea will be a torch that lights the way, and a need-fire or beacon to gather those of like-mind :0)

Love the image and the idea ! A joyful, creative and loving new year to you & Tom from all us three here xxx

Lovely!!! I'm just reading this after a long walk up to some old cairns on a hill not too far outside of town. It could have been a short walk, but there are huge corporate headquarters all around the hill blocking it off so no one has access to these prehistoric buildings on Public Land. Anyway, your message seems especially sweet right now! I can choose not to enter a shopping mall, or a service station most of the time... but it's infuriating to be caged in even outdoors!! It would be beautiful to see some wee cracks opening up in all of this.

It does look very like a bindrune to me too - talk to Mr Of England and he would find a good chunk of meaning in there. My only thought is that part of it is an inverted algiz - a sort of defensive power of the sharp edges of sedge and the antlers of deer - In the CND symbol, although it was not intended to have this in it I always read it as a bit of a symbol of false peace, lack of real safety - the sort of 'security' given by arming part of the world with WMD - Perhaps the false protection from emotion offered by the plastic and chrome... Your idea for your symbol - that I like very hugely muchly - the CND symbol (peace symbol) was released with out copyright or any restrictions by what was at the time quite a small movement - now it is everywhere!

I too have been having long and complicated dreams, and paying attention to them - it is a good practice for accessing the symbolic parts of our perception (some might argue we only perceive the world through symbolism). I have been amazed with what story's my dreaming spins for me in the darkness, and how helpful they can be. I have realised for one thing how strong I perceive myself to be - it is a good source of courage.

Hello Rima, Rise and Root , how strange these days are.I had a dream a few weeks ago of dancing tree people slipping through the veil between worlds.... you drew them. I love reading your blog, makes me feel at home again

I love you..I really do! I came by to read a few of your soulful, meaningful words this new year day, to be inspired and found you had posted this wonderful gift. I will take it, thank you...and I will run.Rima the world is a better place for people like you, that is for sure.

Dear Rima, thank you so much for this beautiful and inspired, inspiring gift for 2012! I immediately felt so much resonance & resoundingness when I saw it, and I'll be happily sharing it all about. Mighty blessings in the new year! ~ Lisa

rise and root taking hold on the Oregon coast. also have linked on my blog hedgerowarts.blogspot.com - Rima, the runes speak wisely and we listen. your sharing enriches us all, thank you and Happy New Year!

Rima, this is MAGNIFICENT. I'm going to share it on Facebook and Twitter and on my blog, maitrisheart.com and I would love to have a rubber stamp made of it or a stencil and put it everywhere I go. You are one of the grandest people I know. Let the revolution never end!

Wow!!!This is magnificent and magical!!!!!!Thank you so much for sharing all these and your inspirational drawing is wonderful,love it!!!!!! This is a great idea!!! It is a very powerful symbol and drawing!!!!! I will definitely use it and make a post about it soon!!!You are so inspiring!!!!! Thank you for sharing your dreams!!!! Happy new year Rima!!! :o)

HelloI wonder if you've ever seen the original CND symbol, with its flared roots. Quite similarhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_peace_badge.jpgI see your rune as a new symbol for peace, for Earth peace, against Ecocide.

I love this. It's the most positive thing I've seen to start this year with.

I have made a stab at uploading it to a sticker-printing website to see if I couldn't carry a few around with me, but I'm having a few issues with the format. Do you have any others available? I think the transparent background is throwing things a little.

If not, no problem, and I'll have a go at fiddling with it some time, but a good clean easy-to-run-with version may get this thing out there for 2012 and have it reach tipping point.

Maybe I'm missing something.

Anyway, great work, and I'll be returning to take a better look at your website sometime. Thanks

Love this idea! Just wanted to give a bit of information on what the Runes within this are.

The symbol itself is a Bind-Rune, which is two or more Runes that are bound together by Isa, a straight line meaning Ice (hence, binding).

The bottom part is often pronounced Yr, and is not a part of the Elder Futhark or most other common Futhark Rows, but is found on German gravestones. It literally means Death, which is appropriate as Death is the Roots to Life.

The top part, is Kaun, another form of Kenaz which is like the greater to mathematical symbol. It is common with the Anglo-Saxons, and means spark, the initiation into fire.

So as you can see, this is quite a fitting symbol to spark a revolution, as Death leads to new things. Hope this has been a bit of help for some of you to have a deeper understanding of what this symbol means.

Absolutely what we need for 2012 and definitely what I need as things change at a dizzying speed. Time to gather the last of winter around me and contemplate just how the resonances of this post will echo through the rest of the year. Or, in short, thank you!

Thank you for your gift and a most charming and mystical blog.Your beautiful blog brings light into my dull and mundain world.Thank you, and I think that I will take it and put it on a T shirt to blurt it out to the world.Warm Regards from Nebraska

It is always a pleasure to read your blog, I'm a journalist and right now I'm living in Mexico, I was very surprised when you mentioned "Zapatistas of Suburbia".

I want to tell you that, even when your intention is admirable (to make a different revolution through art and exhort people to think, etc) you must be careful with your words. It is an awful situation here. Not all the Zapatistas are good, many Indigenous people still paying the consequences of this movement, they suffer because of the corrupt government, the mexican mafias (Carteles) and indeed the Zapatistas.

I don't want to bother you. Again I see you as a very warm and nice person, but don't compare your kind acts of creativity, with the actions of people who HAD a cause and now they only take the money of inocents. You're much more than that.

Hi Rima...i love your work and bought your beautiful cards at christmas..sometimes you remind me of a person i once was a million years ago..wanting to change things live in the country have a goat and live by my artist talents...in some ways i have done this, at art school we all railed against the concrete and multi-storey..this was back in the 70's.As i walk daily in the beautiful countryside i wish everyone could enjoy these things, however they don't..we are in an age where everything is dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, which is very low but on the other hand can we all do without the things that make our lives easy?..i wish everyone would shop on the high street ( i am a small retailer) that the end of the supermarket would come soon but i know it won't and we find our niche, i don't want to change a sanitary towel behind a hedge off the M4 i want a convenient toilet in private and be-able to wash my hands. I thought maybe i shouldn't comment on this..i totally admire what you are saying and your symbol is beautiful, but am just putting another point...love Kay

Maybe I don't understand your post ): I support the right of all to express and rise against injustices, but in a pacific way.

Maybe many people think that a sticker or a graffitti are not violence, or don't affect anyone, but I think they are agressive.

For one day I would like to not re-paint my walls, my door, my windows because of the "expressions" of others. For once I would like to not fix the toilet of my little café, because of the "brave" and "imaginative" customers.

I'm not rich, I cook the meals of my café. I wish to use the money I invest in fixing things in useful things for my kids.

See, maybe in UK you have to deal with the ASBOs, but in my country we haven't such a thing. And the stickers are a real big problem.

Even when I put an announcement offering a little space for anyone who wants to stick/draw/or write, I had no answers. Instead of that people destroy my property.

I appreciate art, and I know we are all free, but a "different" revolution isn't the one that makes destruction, it's OUR duty to respect each others and to live in peace.

Weirdly I dreamt odd 'runic' symbols over Christmas too (I blame the hogweed cookies). Half-asleep and wondering what mine 'meant' it occurred to me that if symbols had a literal meaning, of an A=B kind, then there would be no point to them as they would be words not symbols. Rather they sit at the edge of understanding, goading and cajoling, defying us to pin them down but ever unfolding in rich and rewarding ways.

In my road-protesting days the Dragon Environmental Group devised a bind-rune called the 'tree rune'. We used it to protect trees, to jigger diggers, and did all manner of magic rituals to 'charge' it up. But much as I liked the rune I always found it a bit literal. Yours, by contrast, and coming from the right brain not the left, is beautiful and pokey, drawn up from the depths - I shall arm myself with it in the ongoing mission to piss in the face of mediocrity.

Lovely to see you all, btw. Will post about Lundy soon - it was extraordinary xxx

It is a lovely symbol, Rima. But I agree with the commenters who are uncomfortable with sticking it up in a way that is permanent. Graffiti is unfair. So I'd like to propose that people make it into a card, a charm, or some such, and leave it places, like a little gift. Think how sweet it would be to go into a store, unfold a sweater, and have this medallion fall out!

Yes Rima! Yes! I read your words over my morning tea and there is a rising of feeling traveling up my legs from the roots of the great below. There is a shared passion, a tingling sense of one-ness. I am cheering you on from across the Atlantic, and the birds and the bees and the old growth trees outside my window they are doing the same. There are hands clapping and wings flapping. There are paws, hooves and claws scratching as we raise our dirt encrusted farmers hands to the sky right along with you and say "YES!" Let there be an end to blandness and conformity! Let us find our way back to the arms of the Great Mother, to the wild wisdom of this extraordinary earth and may your dream and this fantastic creation you have birthed and shared with us play a glorious part in this vital and necessary transformation! I shall hand it out on our farm and stick it to the blandness of the outside world. I will also give it out with jars of honey and bouquets of flowers. Thank You Rima! Once Again, thank you.

Rima, your posts are always an inspiration to me. I have attached this bit of writing to my Facebook page in the hopes that Massachusetts will become plastered with your beautiful art in the corners, cubicles, and malls of this disinfected world (though I cannot personally bring myself to a mall, so that must be left to those more courageous than myself...).

I was with you until we got to the chrome sanitized bathrooms. I will not lie. I love me a clean bathroom. All DISinfected. I don't remember the last time I used a service station toilet, but when I did, and if it wasn't clean, I drove to the next one. I'd rather pee along the side of a road than use a nasty restroom. There's much to be said for bland. Over-stimulation isn't good for anyone. I hug your use of the the word liminally, as your choice of communication. Write on. Down with formica! And granite topped counters. Ooh, my goodness! Break an ankle? Girl, you need to come visit me for a month. Am taking your badge instead. See me running? The wild child is wide awake!

A beautiful symbol, and a timely sentiment. As a black sheep artist from a family full of corporate executives, I would very much like to share this with them...It may well be lost, but I'll feel better for having made the effort.

Must add, I love Maggie's idea of printing cards and tags.

Thank you for your generosity in sharing the image. I hope it spreads far and wide.

Looks like the symbol is a combination of two runes, an inverted "cen" (torch) and a "kalc" (chalice). Or maybe it's a variation of kalc and you were unconsciously thinking about a chalice.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anglosaxonrunes.svg

Ellie Shinham posted your image on her blog in the USA so I went to your site to read about it. Your images (not withstanding Root and Rise) are wonderful. So supple, and flowing. Love it! Thanks for Being There.Peace,Simon Brooks, storytellerwww.diamondscree.comWho also has a hat for teabags (and books)!

Rima, you have such a way with words -- have you ever considered writing (and, of course, illustrating) a book of essays? You seem to have captured something many of us have lost -- that connection to the wild and mythical places that are our true home. I, for one, would love to have a small volume of reminders to pick up and peruse when the world is too much with me!

It was lovely to spend a lazy aftrnoon with you an thursday chewing over life and the world! A I was eager to see your symbol after hearing about it and your motivation for creating it....what a perfect image for these changing times! Your picture is 2011 in a nutshell, encapsulating a spirit which we must carry forward to feed our roots with rememberings so our shoots can reach for the skies!

It feels like these times are about reuniting with one another and with the earth, and we have seen how powerful we are when we are united by common values. The idea of sneaking this evocative symbol into the grey corners of everyday of capitalism reminds me of the Hari Krishna with their 'GORANGA' stickers....sowing seeds of peace, love and connectedness. We humans have proved ourselves powerful in many ways, now is the time to prove ourselves wise.....time to evolve and regain harmony.

You know you don't have to listen to anyones opinion, but your own. Be who you want to be. Love the world, love yourself, love the chaos, love the wonder. Good and bad, black, white, gray: its a balance. Life is cyclical...deep down YOU know that. Life is "short"....better start living,than just existing. Love your work and way of life. I love it so much that I lead it pretty similarly. Not too similar- I get motion sickness from road trips. (i.e. bus/camper) Alles gute! -Lis

Just sneaking in to be the hundredth monkey waving my skinny arms in celebration and recognition, dear Rima.

Should I confess that I encouraged a wild god to trace the rune on your forehead with the tip of an ice-age antler while you slept?

No. All yours, channelled straight from the source. I look forward to seeing the symbols painted on motorway bridges and railway carriages, chiselled into the sides of JCBs and police cars, etched onto rusting jumbo jets as the trees begin to grow through them all...

Until then, from tree to tree along the track, rising, rooting, rebellious footstep to footstep, gladly in time with you.

What a wonderful idea! I am afraid I rarely venture to the "dark side" any more... I find cities and built up places make me feel hopeless and miserable so I go as little as possible. However even living in the country I find most folk are just as mindlessly obsessed with money and possessions so I will happily tout your beautiful work as much as possible, be it on t-shirt or carrier bag, or paper copies slipped wherever I think they will cause someone to THINK!!Bless you and yours RimaSal x

Hello, Rimafrom the girl who couldn't get the good ole U.S.A. postal system to be able to validate a common money order to you a couple of years ago...time flies! I wanted so badly to have some prints of yours...but alas, civilization is a bummer. Ah, I understand completely about 'leaving' evidence that there are those of us who would love to see the establishment overrun by 'Mother Nature' and her greenery. My brother, Troy Howell, children's books illustrator, author of 'The Dragon of Cripple Creek' illustrator of the American book jacket covers of the 'Redwall' series by Brian Jacques of England...alas...Brian passed away last spring. Anyway...my brother and I used to embellish small stones, during the Hippie Revolution/Flower Child Era and leave the stones EVERYWHERE! Just a magical something for someone to find on their journey through life. We even left them on benches in downtown Los Angeles for the homeless to find and rich people too...It was just a way of saying...imagination is still alive and well! Thank you for starting this 'revolution' of sorts with your 'image'. It is beautiful and very appropriate.may you have a blessed weekend and week!=^..^=Teresa from Californiahttp://amagicalwhimsy.blogspot.com/

Wonderful idea putting these in public areas!!! I am going to do that...Thank you for sharing it... I know exactly how you feel...I live out in the country...going shopping is an ordeal...I hate it.....I plan these trips to the letter and know where I am going and what to get...When you talked about grabbing the trees and running limping back to the woods I thought of the Treents in LOTR...I will start the uprising here in Maine...:) Fantastic post!!

By jibberance! What a lovely thing, all ancient and celtic. Filled my head with images of Merlin and magic the moment I saw it! What wonderful tree people, silhouetted at dusk? You can almost smell the petrichor, (I've been waiting for an oppurtunity to use that word!)

I always love your posts and look forward to the next one every time... A HUGE thank you for this root - may all the caged beings wake up and see the cracks where they can slip out, may all free-born souls recognize their true, inner freedom, grab the symbol - and run. It will be spread here in Germany, people will get the message! Lots of love for your courageous heart,Johanna

Rima- Thank you so much, Rima! This is such a wonderous thing! I assure you this symbol will begin popping up all over the north east of the US, as well as wherever else I travel, be it Scotland or Germany or Finland or South Dakota, I will ensure this symbol is found. Thank you again, for this wonderful idea.-Garrett

About Me

Rima Staines is an artist using paint, wood, word, music, animation, clock-making, puppetry & story to attempt to build a gate through the hedge that grows along the boundary between this world & that. Her gate-building has been a lifelong pursuit, & she hopes to have perhaps propped aside even one spiked loop of bramble (leaving a chink just big enough for a mud-kneeling, trusting eye to glimpse the beauty there beyond), before she goes through herself.

Always stubborn about living the things that make her heart sing, Rima lives with her partner Tom and their young son in Hedgespoken - an offgrid home and travelling theatre built on a vintage Bedford RL truck.

Rima’s inspirations include the world & language of folktale; faces of people who pass her on the street; folk music & art of Old Europe & beyond; peasant & nomadic living; magics of every feather; wilderness & plant-lore; the margins of thought, experience, community & spirituality; & the beauty in otherness.

Crumbs fall from Rima’s threadbare coat pockets as she travels, & can be found collected here, where you may join the caravan.